It's the sixth day since we returned from the ruins… and well over a month since we left Valemoor behind.
For the last three days, I've buried myself in training—cutting through air with practiced slashes, refining stances, tempering strength with agility. My body aches in places I didn't know existed. But Liam's words ring in my ears like a hammer striking steel:
"Strength without speed is gonna drag you six feet deep."
And he's right. What good is might if I can't even react to a strike? If a single blade ends me before I lift mine, then every drop of sweat I've poured into training strength was wasted.
But today… something feels different.
Maybe I'm adjusting to this life, or maybe the world itself decided to be kind. Birds are chirping in the canopies above. The morning sun drapes the earth in warm, silken rays, soft but steady, like a mother's hand. The cold bite of dawn lingers in the air, sharp and clean, filled with the scent of damp earth and pine.
The trees sway gently, whispering through their leaves. There's power in that sound—subtle, ancient. It makes you want to rise, to move, to conquer.
"Good," Liam said behind me, his voice slicing through the calm. "Let's move to the next technique. Piercer."
He took a step forward and unsheathed his blade. It looked old—scratched, dulled in places, the leather grip worn down to its bones. A lesser man might've discarded it. But Liam wasn't a lesser man. That blade had lived more than most men would.
"This technique," he said, leveling the sword to a wooden post we had driven into the ground, "decides your life or death. Get it right—you survive. Miss even slightly—and you bleed."
He didn't wait for questions. The blade moved.
A sudden, violent gust shot forward as he lunged, the sword a blur of silver and will. The air whooshed past my face so hard my cheeks stung. A perfect hole appeared in the thick wooden post. Clean—like a divine spear had kissed the center.
"That's the first," he said calmly. "A straight stab."
He stepped again—same posture, same grip. But this time, just as the tip struck, he twisted the blade mid-thrust.
Another hole appeared, but this one wasn't clean—it was round, jagged, hollowed like a wound torn open by something alive. I blinked. The motion was nearly identical. The speed, the strength… even the gust had felt the same. But the results were worlds apart.
Why?
Liam exhaled slowly. "Now you understand why this can be the difference between a kill—or your last breath."
Then he turned. "Try."
I stepped forward, but before I could raise my blade, someone else moved ahead.
"I'll give it a shot," Terren said, grinning.
Liam gave a simple nod.
Terren stood before the post, steadying his breath. He positioned his blade as Liam had, held it still—like water frozen in time. Terren was younger than me, barely twenty-one, but built like a man who knew pain intimately. He had trained relentlessly these past weeks. Honestly, I thought he might actually pull it off.
Then he struck.
The blade shot forward—but the angle was off. The point slammed just above Liam's earlier mark.
Clang!
The sound was like iron kissing stone—loud and hard. Terren's body trembled violently as the shock reverberated through his bones. He dropped the blade instinctively. Blood seeped from under his nails.
"Just like I said," Liam murmured. "Play it right and you kill. Play it wrong…"
"…and you bleed," I finished.
Liam turned to us, that half-smile on his lips again. "I didn't explain how. I wanted you to see what happens. Mistakes make better teachers than men like me."
Then he walked over to the post and pointed at the damage.
"You see," he said, "this stab requires hollow handling. Don't strangle the hilt. Don't fight the blade. Let it move as if it's your own hand, not something in it."
He turned to us again.
"Do you move your hand with just your muscles?"
We all nodded.
"Well, yes… but not really. You move with your eyes. The muscles obey—but it's the eyes that guide. Your intent travels through the body into the hand. That's how a stab becomes a Piercer."
He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, his voice felt softer—almost reverent.
> "Let the sword be you. Let your eyes guide the blade."
The world stilled in that moment.
That single line… it was like a door had opened somewhere deep inside me.
----
We spent the rest of the day training the Piercer. Over and over. Until my shoulders screamed. Until my hands blistered. Until I could barely lift my blade, let alone stand upright.
But even in exhaustion, there was something pure about it. Training under the right mentor… bleeding beside someone who calls you brother… it was hard.
But it was beautiful.
But i must admit something, even if it stings my pride.
Terren... he's a monster.
He's been training alongside me since the first day, mirroring every move, every strike, every breath. And yet, here I am—collapsed on the cold earth, my arms trembling, my body aching—while he's still at it, dashing across the clearing with Liam, sharpening his agility.
After a short break, Liam shifted our focus to breathing styles—something I hadn't thought twice about until now. He demonstrated how breath moves with intention: the inhale before a slash, the controlled exhale in a thrust, the still breath of a duel's tension.
With my eyes closed, I focused inward. I could feel the air draw deep into my core, swirling through my lungs, warm and focused as it escaped. For a moment, it felt like the world around me stilled.
But that calm shattered.
---
"AAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!"
A scream—no, a cry that cracked the very air. A sky-splitting wail. My heart sank. I knew that voice.
Miya.
We ran.
Liam moved first, Terren close behind, and I followed, struggling to keep up, my muscles still heavy from training. My boots pounded over dirt and stone as we rounded the corner behind the main outpost building.
Liam stopped abruptly.
Terren took a few steps further, then froze.
Confused, I caught up. I didn't understand. Why had they stopped? Why weren't they moving?
What's going on? Why are they just—
And then I saw it.
The gate.
Blood.
Standing.
Distorted.
Familiar.
Captain.
SegeFord.
But not like we remembered him.
He stood there, barely more than a silhouette in blood. His left arm was shredded—held to his shoulder by skin alone. His jaw hung askew, dislocated or broken. His armor was torn open, and across his chest... gods, it looked like ten blades had carved a starless sky into him.
And in his right hand...
A head.
Not a man's.
A tiger's—but not any tiger. The head was alive, in some horrific way. Its eyes glowed faintly, not feral, not beastly—but cunning. The straps of flesh that dangled from it writhed like leeches, like serpents reaching for what they had no right to claim.
Its eyes weren't looking at Miya.
They were looking through her.
I couldn't breathe, My vision was blurred, My chest constricted like the air itself was denying me entry.
I turned to Liam. He was paralyzed too, jaw clenched, eyes fixed. Terren was pale, fists trembling. Even Miya—Miya, who had screamed like her soul had shattered—was now silent, frozen in place.
It wasn't the gore that had stunned us.
It was the eyes.
Not the beast's.
Segeford's.
Lifeless. Hollow. Yet screaming something beyond words, like
"Approach… and die."
And then, just like that—
THUMP.
He collapsed.
The massive man crumpled like a falling tree, his body hitting the earth with a finality that rattled the silence.
The head rolled free.
For a heartbeat, it twitched. But before it could move again—
WHOOSH.
Liam struck a torch from the nearby pillar and slammed it into the thing.
"OIL!" he roared, his voice thunderous. "Woods and oil—NOW!"
His scream snapped us awake. Me and Terren bolted. We found what we needed and sprinted back. Liam piled the wood over the twitching head, poured the oil, and set it ablaze.
The stench...
Rotten. Beyond foul. Not the smell of decay, but something wrong, something against the world. I gagged, nearly lost my stomach right there.
Miya had fallen to her knees, cradling Segeford, sobbing silently. His massive frame lay in her lap like a corpse not yet claimed by death.
"Stop staring like idiots and help me carry him!" Liam barked.
We rushed to help.
But as my hands touched Segeford, I gasped.
He was hollow.
His frame—once a mountain—was now emaciated, stripped of muscle and life. His wounds were blackened at the edges, festering. His left arm... crushed, shattered beyond healing. His ribs moved wrong—if they moved at all. And he was burning with fever.
He hadn't eaten. Not in days.
He hadn't slept. Not in weeks.
But he had walked here. With that thing.
We got him inside.
"What in the name of all the hells happened here?!" came a shrill voice.
The merchant.
He'd just emerged from the outpost, wide-eyed. "Is he—? Is he dead?!"
"Shut the fuck up!" Liam snapped, his voice like a hammer. "He just killed the Death!"
Then he turned to us with cold urgency. "Get him in the bull cart beside the hall. We're leaving. For Valemire. Right now."
No one questioned him.
We moved in a blur. Within moments, Segeford was secured in the cart.
Then—
"No! No! You can't do that!"
The merchant again. He had followed us out.
Liam turned, eyes burning. "You want to come with us, fine. Hop on."
"Otherwise, get lost."
The merchant raised his hands, stammering. "Hey, hey, hey…!"
Then another voice, unfamiliar and cold.
"We've been assigned to protect this man."
A bodyguard stepped forward from the merchant's entourage, hand resting on his blade.
"And we won't tolerate your tone."
In just that instant—before I could even process Liam's movement—
Shwoooosh.
A blade hissed through the air, stopping just short of the guard's nose.
The man recoiled, stumbling back in panic. His eyes bulged in pure, primal fear.
I couldn't blame him. I was frozen too. I had never seen Liam like this before—rage distilled into form. For a split second, I genuinely thought he'd drive the blade straight through the guard's skull.
Then Liam spoke, low and sharp:
"Wanna tolerate my blade instead?"
His voice had lost all warmth. His eyes—cold, wild, murderous—cut deeper than any sword could.
"Woah—Woah—Gentlemen!" the merchant yelped, leaping between them with hands raised. His voice trembled, but it wasn't just fear—it was concern too. "There's no need for bloodshed! Please… calm down."
He turned to Liam, choosing his words carefully.
"I didn't mean you can't use my cart to carry your captain to Valemire. What I meant was…" he paused, swallowing, "…he won't survive the trip. Valemire has no medics skilled enough to treat wounds of this severity."
Liam didn't respond immediately. His jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth would break. But then, after a breath, he lowered his blade.
"Then we head to Valemoor," Liam muttered.
The merchant's eyes widened. "You really think he can survive half a month of travel in that condition? Be serious. The man won't even make it till tomorrow."
And he wasn't wrong.
Even though Segeford had survived long enough to reach us—somehow, by sheer force of will or divine cruelty—there was no telling how much longer that would last. His body was broken, decayed, barely recognizable. The infection alone could claim him in hours.
We stood in silence, the air thick with dread.
Liam's fists trembled. Miya was still holding Segeford, tears streaking her face, whispering something I couldn't hear. Terren stood beside me, tense, silent.
We were out of time.
"What do we do then!?" I blurted, louder than I meant to. "He'll die if we stay. He'll die if we move."
The merchant nodded solemnly. "There is one option," he said, almost reluctantly.
All eyes turned to him.
"Back on the route," the merchant said, slowly, as if weighing his own words, "the one opposite to Valemire… there's a man. Lives near the old graveyard."
We all turned to him. The weight in his voice wasn't casual.
"They say he doesn't use Tantra. He lives it. Breathes it. Walks with it like it's a second skin. They call him the Grave Hermit. No real name. No clan. Just... stories."
"Stories?" Liam narrowed his eyes.
"They say he can bind a soul. Keep it from slipping past the Sequence." The merchant's fingers tapped the cart's wooden rail, nerves betraying him. "If that man lays his mudras on your friend, you might buy enough time to reach Valemoor. Or something more... permanent."
The air fell still.
Then his tone changed—abrupt, firm, almost fearful.
"But keep one thing in mind," the merchant said darkly, his voice lowering. "He is a Tantric... and Tantra is the Kingdom's property. Practicing outside the sanctioned folds is heresy. And that man?" He shook his head. "He's out of his mind. They say he speaks with crows, listens to graves, and sleeps inside the soil."
He looked at us, one by one.
"If he helps you, your friend might live. But if he doesn't... you might wish he had died here instead."
The merchant dropped a bomb, and the silence that followed was deeper than before. Even the torches seemed to flicker uneasily.